[Berto]

My music was playing perfect last nite. Today I was watching football and just turned on my mac mini and all I get is static filled music and only out of one speaker. I honestly have no clue, cables seem fine, and no settings were changed in PM. Any clues would be greatly appreciated. Happy holidays to all!

[avta]

Maybe you could describe your system in some detail. That will help us try to help you.

[Berto]

Maybe you could describe your system in some detail. That will help us try to help you.

Thanx! I got 200hr old DUDE preamp hooked up to a tranq sig dac to a mac mini. Amps are F2a push pull monos and speaks are Daedalus. Everything worked flawless last listening session.

I run PM in hog mode and tried reconnecting all signal and usb cables.

[avta]

I'm not familiar with your equipment and I'm just a hobbiest but if both speakers sound off I would wonder if the problem is more central such as with your software. If it were me I'd try another play program such as iTunes just to narrow down the problem a bit.

[Berto]

That is a good idea and I thought of it. Its the same static low volume music mostly out of my left speaker. Frustrating, but was working flawless, worst part it was sounding awesome

[ratso]

now you have to do the old switcheroo. switch speaker cables from the amps - if the problem switches sides (if the speaker that wasn't working is now ok), you know it's not the speakers. then check each monoblock by switching them. finally you can check the preamp by switching it's outputs. of course if it's a bad cable in there somewhere then that can take a while to find.

[Berto]

yeah did all the common sense stuff, prob the mac mini settings, and hopefully its not the dac as I don't have another to test. Will take a stress break and will go back at it.

[richidoo]

Probably a tube. After you narrow it down to the preamp or your amps by moving cables, then you can swap tubes from one amp to the other or from one channel to the other in the preamp to locate the noisy tube. Remember to follow the mfg instructions for biasing output tubes if you swap those (save for last). Turn bias to zero before swapping output tubes.

[Berto]

thx richidoo. I opened up my dude preamp and my voltage regulator tube is not glowing. I do not think this is normal and i'mg guessin this is the problem. Of course this is also the one tube i'm yet to buy a replacement for  Sux on a holiday im basiclaly out of luck for now, but will get to the bottom of this soon!